


Bruises

by angstbot



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstbot/pseuds/angstbot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither can possibly spoon the other because they are all knife edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime in Season 1. TW: small mention of previous sexual trauma.

She literally could not think of two more damaged people. Regina, with her lifetime of loss and perception of love as a weakness and sheer steely ruthlessness in getting what she wanted, was enough for a whole Shakespearean tragedy before even adding Emma's own wild abandonment issues and myriad other psychic traumas. 

If this were Henry's book they'd heal each other somehow. They'd come together and learn love and trust again with slow touches and tenderness. But this was no fairy tale, and there was no happy ending in the cards for two people this scarred. There was only this. And they shouldn't be doing it. 

The both of them shouldn't risk Henry hearing, or, god forbid, walking in on them. Emma shouldn't risk losing everyone's trust if they found out. Regina shouldn't risk, well, whatever went on behind those impenetrable brown eyes that she cared about other than Henry. 

Every time, their eyes meet in unspoken agreement that it can never happen again. But that hitch in Regina's breath when she's touched for the first time and the taste of her and that desperate look she gets when whatever Emma is doing isn't quite fast or hard enough to make her come keep the sheriff coming back. And the mayor keeps letting her in and leading her upstairs. 

Regina knows, somehow, not to touch her, even though she can't possibly know it's because the cumulative weight of too many handsy foster dads and prison guards and strangers on buses had taken that sort of intimacy off the table entirely. Or maybe the mayor is just wildly selfish. Whatever the reason, her hands and mouth almost never stray from neck, shoulders, biceps, back, though she has been known to pull Emma by the ass as a way to ask to be fucked harder. 

She doesn't coo in Emma's ear and brush her hair back when the blonde collapses on top of her after getting off against her. They collide, they clutch, they leave bruises with hands and mouths and countertops and walls. Neither could possibly spoon the other because they are all knife edges. But when the mayor drags her nails down Emma’s back hard enough to break the skin or gets muscle between her teeth biting down on a shoulder to keep from screaming, it feels right, like penance. And when Regina's back arches clear off the bed as she comes with a strangled cry, it feels like a benediction.

Absolution is too much to ask for, but this? It's almost enough.


End file.
